About

Founded in 1839, Türk Telekom is an established institution in Turkey that offers a complete range of mobile, fixed voice, broadband and TV services. The legal team, led by chief legal officer Doğan Coşgun, is comprised of 180 lawyers and 168 paralegals. Divided into five sub-groups, each managed by an experienced legal director, the team can provide dedicated legal support to relevant business lines. The team has assisted in the company’s recent restructure under consumer, corporate and wholesale business units, leading it to be the first integrated telco company in Turkey. Following the adoption of an integrated structure, the legal team also worked on unifying three of the group’s companies, which collectively had 38 million subscribers, under the single umbrella of Türk Telekom. In line with this, Coşgun says ‘the legal department has completely changed its way of doing business and interacting with business lines. Lawyers are no longer advising a certain subsidiary but all of them. They are in direct contact with the business units which seek legal support, meaning all legal-related inquiries of various business and support functions of Türk Telekom Group are handled and processed by our legal team’. As Türk Telekom focuses on creating new revenue streams, its lawyers have had to be competent in core telecoms rules as well as developing knowledge of the legal frameworks of other relevant industries, like energy, payment systems and electronic money. Helping the company achieve its prime objective of becoming an integrated telecoms service and network provider, the team also played crucial roles and provided critical guidance in almost all decisions taken during the functional integration process, as well as managing the related litigation. Leading technological innovation in the Turkish in-house market, the legal team, in conjunction with the group’s IT subsidiary, redesigned software for litigation and “bad debt” monitoring with such success that the group is now licensing it to other companies. ‘We are now in the trial process of integrating our software to National Judiciary Informatics System managed by the Ministry of Justice’, adds Coşgun. The legal team’s other achievements include the settlement of disputes with one of the major telco providers for nearly €100m, gaining access to two major non-regulated relevant markets after removing the competitor-forced exclusivities that created entry barriers. The dispute, which lasted more than five years, also saw the removal of a “retail price cap” brought on their subscriber tariffs. As Türk Telekom continues to grow, the legal team will continue to produce market firsts to facilitate that expansion.